


Not Just Another Tuesday

by withasideofangst



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Cliffhangers, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, POV Peggy Carter, Period-Typical Sexism, Random & Short, Steve Rogers does not like bullies, Time Travel, Tony Stark does not like Howard, or sexism, will continue if enough people want me to?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:07:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5412794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withasideofangst/pseuds/withasideofangst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It happened on a Tuesday.</p><p>Peggy hated Tuesdays.  Something always happened on Tuesdays.</p><p>Little but troublesome things, that were always pushed on her to deal with, like the coffee machine breaking last week and drenching a new agent in boiling hot liquid.</p><p>This was not like the other Tuesdays.</p><p>Or: Peggy and the SSR find themselves in New York City, but it isn't quite the one they're used to.</p><p>[EDIT: Abandoned due to lack of more plot ideas]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Peggy Carter Hates Tuesdays

**Author's Note:**

> Here is something I wrote a while back, so I don't abandon you all for too long again while I finish my exams. SC chapter 3 is well under way, so my SC readers don't need to wait much longer!
> 
> This was just a random thought I had, but a friend of mine really wants more. If more of you want it too, I'd be willing to continue it (after I update SC and finish the Christmas 2015 wishlist_fic challenge I accepted - five more shorts before Christmas left, which won't take me long). If this is continued, I'll move it out of the Asshole Shorts series, and it will get multiple chapters.
> 
> So open-ended for now! You've been warned!

It happened on a Tuesday.

Peggy hated Tuesdays.  Something always happened on Tuesdays.

Little but troublesome things, that were always pushed on her to deal with, like the coffee machine breaking last week and drenching a new agent in boiling hot liquid.

This was not like the other Tuesdays.

\---

One minute, she was just standing up to leave and catch the end of Angie's shift at the diner for dinner, and the next, she was standing in the middle of the street, rubble and chaos around her.

She and most of her coworkers who had been in the office at the time were standing in the middle of a crater where some sort of impact and explosion had recently occurred.

And then there were the creatures, living and dead, running amok in the streets around them.

The men from the SSR drew their guns while she tried to figure out where they were.

It looked rather like New York City, except -

A creature leaped at the SSR group, and three men shot at it, but their bullets didn't seem to bother it.

Then another figure crashed out of the sky to land in front of it, and the creature was sent flying backwards into a building by one punch.  It didn't get up again.

Peggy and the other SSR agents, however, were not looking at the dying creature.

They were too busy staring at Captain America, alive and standing in front of them.

"-I don't know, I just got there, I told you, I just saw a flash of light and -"

He was talking into something in his ear - _like a tiny radio?_ Peggy wondered - but he looked up and froze mid-sentence, when his gaze landed on Peggy.

"Uh.  Guys?  I could use some help over here."  He said into the device, not looking away.

A creature snuck up behind him, but before Peggy could even say anything, a red and gold metal man flew out of the sky like a missile and blasted it with a beam of energy from one of its palms.

The metal man said something to Steve, but it must have been through the mini-radio, as Peggy couldn't hear it.  She could see the metal man's double-take when he saw the array of people standing in front of him, however.

The metal man muttered something else, which made Steve frown and glance towards it for a moment, before staring at Peggy again.

The metal man flew off, continuing to dispatch the creatures attacking the city, and Peggy could sense Howard's gaze following it like a wolf sighting its prey.  She wasn't sure if she was glad or annoying that he had been visiting the office, but that look meant she was going to have a headache later, and a lot of paperwork.

Her eyes were still locked on Steve's however, as he walked towards her.

"How are you here?"  He asked.

"I don't know," she replied, feeling the envious gazes of her coworkers on her.  Howard practically lept to her side and began talking so quickly that neither Peggy nor Steve were entirely sure of what he was saying.

Before anyone had any answers, however, someone else approached.

Peggy sensed the approach, as it brought a deadly killing edge with it, something she had only rarely experienced with some of the SSR's more deadly enemies.

Both her and Howard's jaws dropped when a cold-gazed, metal-armed Bucky Barnes marched towards them, a sleek-looking assortment of guns strapped to him, of types Peggy had never seen before.

Steve didn't seem surprised to see his dead best friend, but Peggy gazed with plain shock for a long moment before gathering herself.

To her surprise, however, Sergeant Barnes did not react much to the sight of her or Howard, and only the slightest widening of his eyes gave away that he recognized them at all.

"I see you are having guests.  Don't mind us, we'll just finish fighting off the alien army while you catch up," Sergeant Barnes said, and Peggy was surprised at the rather cold tone of voice.

Steve winced slightly at it, before flashing a small smile to Peggy and Howard.

"I'll explain later," he muttered under his breath.

"On my way," he called back to his best friend, then he quickly guided the SSR agents out of the path of destruction to where they could help clearing away civilians, while he leapt back into the fray.

No, this was definitely not a normal Tuesday, Peggy thought to herself.

 


	2. There’s Enough History in This Room to Fill the Smithsonian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These will probably be fairly short chapters, since this was not supposed to go anywhere originally, and I’m just picking scenes for each new chapter. This won’t be linear.
> 
> I think I know the ending, though. XD

When the SSR is brought back to the Tower - which Steve said is called Avengers Tower, but Howard instantly recognized as Stark Tower, except almost entirely rebuilt - Peggy gets to witness something she never  _ ever _ thought she’d see.

Howard Stark, standing next to a slightly shorter almost-copy of himself, who Steve introduces as Tony Stark, before things really get tense.

Tony, after all, is not at all hiding that he doesn’t want to be anywhere near Howard.  Howard certainly isn’t improving matters, Peggy knows, by walking around the floor like he owns the place, questioning architecture design choices and more.

Tony’s face just gets tighter, like he’s been forced to swallow the world’s sourest lemon as is trying not to show it, when Howard starts inspecting the metal suit he steps out of.

Iron Man, they’re told, is the name of the suit.  Peggy has never seen anything like it, and she knows Howard hasn’t either - but apparently, that makes him want to take it apart and learn how it works.

She’s  _ positive _ this new Stark is going to explode.

It doesn’t take long to prove her theory right.

She doesn’t actually see the action which sets him off, but a mild-mannered man (once he stops being green and huge and, apparently, nearly indestructible) who introduces himself as Bruce Banner tells her later that Howard started fixating on the glowing device in Tony’s chest, which Bruce refers to as an “arc reactor,” which keeps Tony alive.

Also, he tells her, Howard turns out to be, unsurprisingly, a rather horrible father, from what little Bruce knows.

What Peggy sees is the immediate aftermath.  Namely, Tony punching Howard in the jaw so hard, he probably fractures his hand, and likely Howard’s jaw.  Howard certainly ends up with a black eye, and Tony looks like he’s ready to keep going, but the red-haired woman (who they’re later told is Natasha Romanov, a student of the Red Room they’ve come across in their own time) drags him out of the room.

A nurse who, they’re told, works for SHIELD, which is what the SSR will become, shows up and Howard goes willingly.  Peggy gives a long-suffering sigh, wondering if he’s going to try to add women from the future to his long list of “conquests.”

She may find Tony and have him hit Howard again, if he does.  She suspects he may deserve it.

As, apparently, they are not keeping their future a secret, the next two hours are spent introducing the Avengers to the SSR, giving a very rough explanation of how the SSR became SHIELD, with Peggy and Howard as founding members - one of her coworkers scoffs, remarking that a woman would never be the head of the SSR, no matter what its name, and Steve looks ready to murder him.  Steve literally drags the man out of the room for a moment, and when they return, the SSR agent’s knees are literally shaking - and then abruptly, the now-metal-armed Bucky Barnes walks into the room, and Steve falls silent.

“How do you explain  _ him? _ ”

Steve and Bucky both glare at the SSR agent who spoke.

Peggy has to admit, the future-Bucky’s stare is  _ almost _ enough to intimidate her.  The poor agent is shaking harder than the one Steve talked to.

“Hail Hydra,” Bucky says, and it takes Peggy a moment to catch the bitterness in his flat tone.

All the other SSR agents tense.

That’s when the explanation becomes horrifying, to the SSR.

Peggy can’t believe that her life’s work - what Steve says her life’s work  _ will be _ \- amounts to scattered factions now, barely hanging on, because Hydra infected it in the beginning.

It’s only after several minutes of silence, the SSR in shock and the Avengers expressing sympathy with their silence, that Steve begins to ask them  _ when _ exactly they’re from, and how they could have arrived in the future.

The latter, they don’t know, and neither do the Avengers.

The former, well.

That’s another issue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will expand on Peggy interacting with different Avengers, I’m just dropping the introductions first.
> 
> (And, yes, you'll get to see more of Tony and Howard in the same room. To Tony's displeasure.)


	3. When We're From

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. I hadn’t really intended this fic to go places, but apparently you guys like it! (AKA, I’m a sucker for comments, damn, so that’s the best way to make me do things. XP)
> 
> I’m really not happy with the way I wrote the first two chapters so I’ll probably go back and edit them at some point, but I figure I owe you guys a new one first. Particularly due to that dick move of a cliffhanger. XD Oops.
> 
> (Other note: I haven't been able to see CACW yet, but I'll probably go tomorrow. I have no plans to use any of it for this fic, but on the off chance I did, I'll tag for spoilers and mention it in the notes.)
> 
> (Other other note: Yes, this means I'm breaking my period of silence cause I have time to write again! New fic coming soon!)

“Okay,”  Steve says, in an attempt to move the conversation on.  “It sounds like there was nothing on your end that caused your...unexpected time traveling.  With the number of alien objects and species we’ve found and fought, it was more likely to be on our end anyway.  Stark?”

Both men look up at him.  Howard is about to open his mouth over his son-to-be, so Peggy very carefully stomps on his foot with one heel.

He winces unsubtly, but shuts up.

The son - Tony - glances over at her before he speaks, and she could swear his eyes smile, even if his mouth doesn’t.

“Hey, Cap, don’t look at me.  Green and Mean and I haven’t started anything new in the last couple days.”

The Hulk.  Doctor Banner.  That is something else Peggy was going to have to get used to.

“Alright, we’ll keep looking, but we can bench that for the moment,”  Steve continues.  “So, then, timelines - we’ve covered our end.  When did you all come from?”

Steve is looking at Peggy for the information, but before she can speak, one of the SSR agents answers.

It had been the middle of February, and the SSR had just gotten back from a mission overseas, where they’d successfully arrested several Hydra agents, but the major players they’d been after had escaped on a train to Russia.

“Bucky?”

Peggy is startled out of her thoughts by Steve’s prompting of his ex-dead best friend, who was now sitting rigidly in his seat, slightly away from the table and the others, but closer to Steve than anyone else.

“The train,” Bucky mumbles, and Steve looks like someone drowned his kitten.

“Are you having a flashback?”  He asked, sounding like he was about to panic, but he was derailed by Bucky shaking his head.

“February sixteenth,”  Bucky recites in a tone of voice that sends a chill down Peggy’s spine, “the candidates for the Winter Soldier program are transferred from Austria to Poland and then Russia.  Along the way, the candidates escape, but all except for two are recaptured.”

Everyone present pales at the report.

“What...what happened to the other two?”  One agent asks, nervously.

The Winter Soldier’s eyes latch onto the agent, and he immediately shrinks down in his seat slightly.

Peggy can’t really blame him.

“Two candidates led the escape attempt.  Their lives were deemed unnecessary for Hydra’s mission.  Their deaths served as a demonstration for the other candidates.”

The agent straightens slightly, trying to keep meeting the Soldier’s eyes.

“A...demonstration?”

“Their mutilated bodies remained with the candidates until the train’s arrival in Russia.”

After that, no one really wanted to keep talking.

\---

Peggy has just decided to leave her quarters and venture into the Avengers’ common floor when she witnesses the second conflict of the Starks for that day.

She enters the room just in time to hear Tony say, “Hey, Capsicle, you  _ seriously _ let people believe you punched Hitler in the face?  I mean, if you got that close, wouldn’t you at least -”

“ _ You don’t talk to him that way. _ ”

Peggy instantly quickens her step.

That’s not a tone of Howard’s voice that ever leads to good things.

When she takes in the scene, Steve sitting on one of the couches, Tony leaning against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, at least one other Avenger making noise in the adjacent kitchen, and Howard angrily approaching his future son, she realizes that while Steve seemed ready to let the nickname go without comment (telling Peggy that he’s long since grown used to Tony’s antics), Howard doesn’t seem to feel the same way.

“This man has been frozen in ice for  _ decades _ ,” he says, and his tone is scathing.  “You say you’re my son, but apparently you never learned any sense of  _ respect _ for your betters.”

The room goes silent, and Peggy could swear she feels a coldness emanating off of Tony.

“No,” Tony replies after a long moment, “I guess you never taught me that.  After all, you were always off looking for the fossil over here, until Frosty the Assassin put an end to that.”

Which was more than anyone had previously brought up about the individual futures of the SSR members.

“Tony,”  Steve says, censoring, after a moment, but Peggy catches his eye and shakes her head.

She wonders how he doesn’t see the front that the second Stark is putting on.

Tony stalks out of the room before anyone can say another word, and when she asks later, JARVIS tells her that he’s locked everyone else out of the workshop.

**Author's Note:**

> You have no idea how much I've been yelled at for not bringing Angie forward too, but it was flimsy enough getting Howard in the SSR building to get zapped, let alone Angie.
> 
> (Also, Tony is totally not pleased about meeting this Howard.)


End file.
